The General
by she.a.punk
Summary: "You don't call, you don't write. If I didn't know any better I'd think you didn't care, Mike." - Future!fic suits-style. Now Mike's the big dog and he's got his own puppy.


**A/N:** I have yet to find a future!fic (not counting kid!fic) on this site, so I thought I'd write one. Hope you like!

**Disclaimer**: I don't own _Suits_ or _Dispatch_

* * *

><p><em>there was a decorated general<br>with a heart of gold,  
>that likened him to all the stories he told<br>of past battles won and lost,  
>and legends of old<br>a seasoned veteran in his own time  
><em>

_So take a shower, shine your shoes  
>you got no time to lose<br>you are young men you must be living  
>go now you are forgiven<em>

_-_from _The General _by_ Dispatch  
><em>

Jessica heard him even before she saw him. The indignant rhythm of his gait as he approached and self-righteous anger in his tone when he spoke to her assistant that still somehow came across as endearing (he'd given up on charming years ago, endearing really played more to his strengths) that was an odd combination only _he _could pull off.

She put on her most stern look and kept her eyes glued to the file in front of her, determined not to react to his temper tantrum.

_Still a puppy_, she thought fondly, listening as the lawyer tried to gain access to her office through her assistant.

Seconds later he burst through her glass doors.

"Jessica-"

She held up one dark finger and finished reading the paragraph she was on before looking up. "Micheal." She said calmly, taking in his flushed cheeks and angry glare with a smile and folded her hands on her desk. "Is there a problem?"

"Is there a prob-" He snapped, but stopped himself short from continuing what would have undoubtedly been a poor choice in words, and forced a deep breath, taking Jessica's raised eyebrow for the warning it was.

"Jessica," he began again, calmer this time, settling into one of the chairs opposite her desk. He absently unbuttoned his suit jacket and smoothed his silk tie down his front. He'd managed to learn the lesson about appearance at some point. Though he never took to quite the opulent taste his mentor had he was certainly a long way from his 'five suits for five hundred dollars' days.

"Mike," she said again, smiling back at him.

His smile slipped and he leaned his elbows on his knees. "Is there a particular reason you gave my case to Kyle?"

Jessica tilted her head, locks of black hair with far more silver and white in it than there used to be fell across her shoulders. "Which case would that be?"

"You know full well which one Jessica," Mike said, throwing his hands in the air, "The Spilinski Case. I'm the one that brought it into the firm, I _deserve _it."

"Mike, I admire how much you care about the pro bono cases the firm takes on," she pretended she didn't see his disbelieving eye-roll, "_however_ Kyle's a junior partner, he needs to develop a more approachable demeanor and there are more important cases for you to work on. Like, for example, the Gilliam case that I seem to expressly remember giving to your assistant to give to you."

"Look, I know but I just figured Kyle wanted the Gilliam case anyway and he doesn't give a damn about the Spilinski pro bono so I-"

"Went ahead and did what you wanted? Like always? You never do what I ask, do you Mike?" She said, shaking her head, muttering under her breath, "You take after Harvey that way."

The man gave a cheeky grin and made a show of smoothing down his perfectly gelled hair.

"Yeah, but I always get you what you want."

Jessica nodded, "lucky for you you take after Harvey that way too."

Mike nodded, his eyes shifting to one side and defocusing in a way Jessica had come to recognize as him accessing some long ago filed memory.

"Have you talked to him lately?" She asked quietly.

Mike smiled almost sheepishly. "No, I've been kind of busy with work and with Jenny and..."

"...and you don't call, you don't write. If I didn't know any better Mike I'd say you _don't care." _

Mike leapt out of his chair and turned to face the door with a look so wide-eyed and puzzled it flashed Harvey back nearly ten years.

"Harvey!" Mike's grin could have lit Rockefeller center on New Years and it was infectious, spreading to both Harvey and Jessica before Mike had even crossed the room and enveloped his former mentor in a hug.

"How you doin' pup?" Harvey asked quietly as Mike pulled back to look at him. The same old open honesty and genuineness Harvey remembered (and had been worried being a lawyer would drum out of him) showed inside the blue eyes, but without the hint of need and youth that used to be there.

"Hey, Mike Ross, Senior Partner," Mike said, pointing his thumbs toward himself, "I'm a big dog now."

"You'll always be a pup from where I'm standing kid," Harvey said, squeezing Mike's shoulder with a grin, the laugh lines around his eyes deeper and more pronounced than what Mike remembered.

Mike rolled his eyes at the comment but there was a fondness that passed between them that neither could deny.

"How's Donna?"

"Ask her yourself." Harvey said, stepping back, "You go one more week without calling and she's gonna hunt you down."

Mike paled and Harvey was left with that lingering sense of nostalgia again.

"I'll call her."

"That would be wise."

Mike was about to respond when his phone vibrated in his breast pocket.

"Sorry," he muttered, pulling the small device out. His eyes widened at whatever he'd read on the small screen. "Um- look," he glanced apologetically at Harvey. "Look, I hate to go, but I gotta go take care of something. But um, stop by my office before you go okay?"

Harvey nodded and watched Mike start to leave when Jessica stood from her desk to call him back.

"Mike? Focus on the Gilliam case."

"Of course, Jessica." He said with a grin, leaving the office without another word.

Jessica sighed, shaking her head and folded her arms across her chest.

"He's going to do the Spilinski case," she sighed and Harvey nodded.

"Yup."

"You just _had_ to have another you, didn't you?"

Again, Harvey grinned, "would you have it any other way?"

Jessica decided not to dignify that with a response.

"How are you Harvey?" She asked quietly, coming out from behind her desk and approaching him.

"Been good."

"But bored?"

"Sometimes," he said with a shrug, ambling over to the wall to study some of the awards and certificates that she'd accumulated since he left. "but I teach enough classes at the University to keep me occupied."

"Corrupting young minds?" Jessica asked with a teasing raised eyebrow.

"I like to think of it as opening them to new possibilities. And never accepting a no-win situation." He turned back to face her, cheeky grin in place and hands in his pockets.

"Kirk? Really?"

"What? It fits." He said with a shrug, moving toward the door, knowing there were many things more important for a Name Partner at Pearson Hardman to be doing than catching up with an old friend.

"See you for drinks later?" She said, returning to her desk and the file she'd been reading before Mike interrupted her.

"Donna and I wouldn't miss it."

He paused at the door and turned back. "Hey Jessica..."

"He's good Harvey." She interjected immediately, "As good as you once were."

He smiled, clearly pleased by her answer.

"Best mistake I ever made."

She looked up to meet his eyes and smiled.

"You should be proud of him."

He met her smile with his own and nodded once before turning to leave.

* * *

><p>"And then he goes, 'optimally you don't even have a puppy'."<p>

Harvey tilted his head. He was passing the associates bullpen on his way to Mike's office when he heard two young voices coming from inside one of the cubicles.

"A puppy? What does that mean?"

"I don't know, he's saying I'm soft and floppy like a baby dog?"

"Either that or he thinks you need to be housebroken."

Harvey smirked, listening to the associates grouch. A chair squeaked as it turned and pieces of paper were being shuffled and reorganized on a desk.

"Yeah, thanks a lot. Look, I've gotta go through all these briefs and bring him back a loophole before lunch so, get lost okay?"

"Alright alright, touchy. Don't be mad at me because the world's nicest asshole is your boss."

Harvey raised his eyebrows.

"Shh! You know he likes to pop up unexpectedly. It's like he _knows _when we're talking about him."

"You're so paranoid...still. Mr. Ross is like the coolest, nicest, most sincere badass lawyer this side of the Atlantic. You don't get to complain to me as long as I'm working for the 'worst boss of the century', the one and only Kyle Cunningham."

The second associate's voice trailed off as he walked away and Harvey turned the corner toward the partner's offices, catching his first glimpse of the bullpen and what he assumed to be Mike's associate, if the skinny tie, wrinkled shirt and bed-head hair were anything to go by.

Harvey rolled his eyes, _kid got himself another him_, he thought with a wry smile, and headed to Mike's office.

"Hey, you got plans for lunch?"

Mike looked up and a wide, whole-hearted _Mike_ smile lit up his face.

"Not yet." He stood from his desk and flipped the file he was looking at closed, tossing it into a drawer in his desk.

Harvey put his hands in his pockets and looked around. "I can't believe she gave you my old office."

Mike snorted, "Jessica said I spent so much time here as it was that it was practically half mine anyway." He collected his wallet and slung his leather briefcase over his shoulder. It was a messenger style like the brown one he'd had when Harvey hired him, but made of more respectable (and luxurious) black leather and suede.

Harvey bent to look at a couple of the pictures on Mike's desk.

"Jenny looks great. And Olivia's getting huge," He said pointing at the picture of Mike's smiling blonde wife and the red-headed little girl in her arms.

"Yeah, she'll be four soon." Mike smiled fondly and rubbed a hand through his hair, mussing the gel and standing it on end.

Like in the old days.

He reached out to pick up another picture. "And this is Cody. He just turned two."

Harvey's eyes crinkled with a tender smile and he marveled at how like Mike the blue eyed child looked.

"They're great, Mike."

He nodded, "thanks."

Harvey carefully placed the picture back on the desk and put his hands back in his pockets.

"Congratulations, by the way." He said as the two left the office and headed toward the elevators.

Mike frowned. "What?"

"Donna says you've got another on the way."

Mike's eyes widened. "How did she-" He stopped at Harvey's knowing look and laughed.

"Some things never change, huh?" He shook his head, "I guess congratulations are in order for you too then."

Harvey raised a questioning eyebrow and punched the 'down' button on the elevator.

"What? Isn't your fifteen year anniversary around the corner?"

Harvey's smile was a soft one Mike couldn't remember having seen before he and Donna crossed that line they'd surreptitiously drawn between 'friends' and 'more'.

"Yeah. Well, twenty-five if you count the ten years we were together _before _we were together."

"Ah," Mike nodded and they stepped inside the elevator car, about to start debating where to go to lunch when the young man in the skinny tie Harvey had seen earlier slipped through the shutting doors, very nearly getting caught between them.

"Ah, Mike, hey, I think I found the loophole," he looked up with big, questioning eyes, "what do you think?"

Mike scanned the sheets of paper the kid handed him and nodded. Harvey watched the confident way he held himself, pursed lips and eyes narrowed in concentration. And it occurred to him, the kid wasn't really a kid anymore.

"Yeah, great Jim. This is good work."

Jim smiled at the praise and his eyes slid over to Harvey.

"Mike is this really," he looked at his mentor and then Harvey, "Are you Harvey Specter. _The _Harvey Specter?"

Mike rolled his eyes. "Don't you have some work to do Jim?"

The kid shifted on his feet when Mike shoved past him and left the elevator in the lobby, Harvey on his heels.

"Oh, yeah but um Mike, um..."

Mike raised his eyebrows. "Yeah?"

"I don't actually know how to fill out an Indemnity Form."

Harvey watched Mike out of the corner of his eye. His face was unreadable as he stepped forward, reaching back inside the car to hit a button, closing the doors with the kid still in the elevator. The kid's shoulder's sagged and Mike raised his eyebrows and waved.

"Figure it out, Jim."

"Yeah, that's kind of what I figured you'd say." Jim nodded, "Nice to meet you Mr. Spec-"

The doors closed between them and Harvey raised an eyebrow, watching the numbers ascend.

"That kid did..."

"Yeah," Mike sighed as if disappointed. "He went to Harvard."

Harvey shook his head. "They sure don't make 'em like they used to."

Mike smirked. "No, they sure don't."

The elevator stopped on the ninth floor and Mike turned to head toward the lobby doors, Harvey by his side.

"So you've got your own you now, huh?"

"Yeah. He's sort of like my Linus."

Harvey frowned in confusion and then, realizing Mike's reference, raised an eyebrow in amusement.

"And you're who? Danny Ocean?"

Mike scoffed. "Of course not." He paused a beat. "I'm Rusty, you're Danny."

If it was a sound Harvey would admit to making, Harvey would have snorted. "You're Brad Pitt? I think not. If anything, _I'm _Brad Pitt."

Mike's indignant response was drowned out as the two left the cool office building lobby for the stifling heat of New York in the summer like they had dozens of times before.

And like no time had passed at all.

END

**_Hope that was enjoyable. Let me know what you thought!  
><em>**


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